Judge berates AI entrepreneur for using a generated ‘lawyer’ in court

A man’s recent attempt to use an AI-generated avatar in his legal appeal made an immediate impression on a New York courtroom, but probably not the one he was hoping for. Jerome Dewald — a 74-year-old that The Register notes is behind a startup that says it’s “revolutionizing legal self-representation with AI” — was chewed out during an employment dispute hearing on March 26th for failing to inform judges that he had artificially generated the man presenting his oral argument. While the court had approved Dewald to submit a video for his case, Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels became confused when the unknown speaker, who clearly wasn’t Dewald, appeared on the screen. “Hold on,” Manzanet-Daniels said, interrupting the video after the avatar had barely finished its first sentence. “Is that counsel for the case?” “I generated that,” Dewald responded. “It’s not a real person.” Dewald told The Register that the avatar — a “big, beautiful hunk of a guy” called Jim — was one of the stock o ... Read full article.